Kindling
by thisloser
Summary: As an ANBU Captain, Tenzou made all the right choices, so why does he still feel like a failure? hints of Kakashi/Gai and Yamato/Kakashi


Hell.

All his life he had associated the term with darkness, slippery shadows moving across shiny surfaces. Metal. Needles. The distant hum of _something. _Disinfectant biting his nose.

Cold, his hell had always been cold.

Cold and clean and silent.

_Wrong._

* * *

The heat was strong enough to raise blisters on Tenzou's lips, even behind the mask. Through the eyeholes, he saw nothing but slivers of a burning world. Dancing flames, merry like little children. Gleeful.

Dai was still screaming, had been screaming forever, loud, increasingly hoarse screams with barely any pause between them, bleeding into each other.

"Move!" Tenzou wanted to yell, "Get away!", but his lungs were on fire; he was breathing ashes.

He needed to give orders, and yet he was kneeling on the black earth, his mouth contorting painfully around the absence of words.

12 o'clock. In the heart of the blaze, the missing nin was a malevolent black shape. He was raising his arm. He was looking at Tenzou, _aiming_, and Tenzou's body was heavy like coal, immobile, his head filled with nothing but that long, desperate scream.

"Taichou!" Youshin shrieked, sounding like a girl, a little girl yelling for her daddy to fix everything.

She crashed into his side at the last second, fire seared them both, he could smell it, not just from what was left of Kyou, but on himself. Burned flesh, melted fabric, fear.

One moment was lost, somewhere between Youshin slamming into him and him landing in the dead grass. She was on top of him when his eyes snapped open, her mask was cracked, the eyeholes seemingly empty like a skull's.

She didn't move.

He could barely breathe with the heat and with Youshin on his chest. And Kyou and Dai.

His leg was pulsing with agony. He could see himself bloating up into one blister and bursting into nothingness.

Tenzou closed his eyes, focusing his chakra, feeling the spark of life between his fingertips for what might be the last time. He realized that couldn't hear Dai anymore.

One last, blind shot.

_If I survive this, Senpai, I swear I'll tell you. It doesn't matter if you reject me; I just want you to know…_

A breeze caressed his face, not exactly cool but burning with a different kind of energy. It passed him like a flash of light, and it stalled Tenzou's hand and opened his eyes.

The afterimage of a blue flame burned itself into his retinas. He acted on instinct, using every little last resource of strength he had left to roll them over, to try and shield Youshin with his body. To his surprise and relief, she groaned softly.

It was the last thing he heard before the world exploded into white.

* * *

Consciousness came back with a vengeance. It pounded in his temples and turned the stretch of scorched grass he lay on into a fuzzy, pulsing smear of brown and black.

Tenzou gasped.

Something was screaming, the sounds wet and inhuman and terrifying.

Above him the sun was visible again, with its jagged edges it looked like a white hole burned into the sky. As if someone had taken an eraser to the blue. It hurt.

He touched his face. Someone had taken his mask. His skin felt numb and naked against his fingertips.

Voices. There were voices, snaking in between the screams.

Tenzou rolled on his side and tried to sit up. His right leg wouldn't move. It just lay there like it wasn't even part of his body. He had to navigate around it, as if he was tied to an obstacle.

"Taichou," Youshin appeared out of nowhere, crouching down next to him. She was alive, maskless and not dead. Not dead, not dead, that was the only thing Tenzou's mind could grasp.

She touched his shoulder with her living hand and helped prop him into a sitting position.

"You shouldn't move this much, Taichou," she said, waving discreetly at someone behind her. "It's over; we got support."

Someone was dying nearby. That was what the noises told Tenzou.

"What is that?" he croaked as a scream turned into a rattling gasp. "Dai?"

"No, Dai is –" just a hair's breadth of a pause, "he's not hurt badly—"

He needed to know. He was an ANBU captain. He needed information.

"Help me up." Tenzou said.

"You probably shouldn't—"

"_Youshin."_

"Taichou." She looked away and draped his arm over her shoulder. When she got up, it felt like his own weight was pulling him apart for a second, but Tenzou bit back any sounds of pain. He stood, swaying, but he _stood._

There were more people around than he had expected. Youshin had blocked most of his view when he'd lain on the ground, but now that he stood, she helped him willingly enough.

With every agonizing step they took, his right foot dragged on the ground. Youshin had to take a lot of his weight.

Two steps and he could see the source of the screams. A man on the ground. Konoha vest, tattered green outfit, orange around one calf.

A medic was kneeling next to him, a helpless frown on his face, as the man writhed.

"Gai-san," Tenzou said, slowly putting the pieces together.

"He saved us." Youshin pulled on his arm. "We shouldn't stare at him like that. Let's go see Dai."

But Tenzou kept staring. Gai-san was having some kind of seizure and making some of the worst noises he has ever heard coming from a human. It was gruesome to watch, yet he couldn't look away. He found himself turning his head when Youshin dragged him past, taking in thin thread of saliva that dripped from the corner of Gai-san's mouth, the dark stain spreading between his twitching legs.

* * *

The debriefing took place in one of Tenzou's least favorite places in the whole world, a hospital room.

Dusk was settling outside and Sandaime had not switched on the light. He stood in the middle of the room in full attire, a little stooped, shadows deepening the creases on his face, making him look ancient and ageless at the same time.

Ever since he'd watched Kyou being burnt alive, Tenzou had been wondering about what was going to happen next, now that, for the first time, he had utterly, completely and irredeemably failed. Only, for the whole rest of the mission he'd been ninety-nine percent certain that the answer would simply be that he, too, would die. It had seemed so obvious.

But now he was alive and he had to live with himself. Somehow.

Sandaime sighed, a long, tired and deeply sad sound that was miles away from Dai's screams of rage and grief, but had an eerily similar effect on Tenzou in that it made him want to cry.

"How are you feeling?" Sandaime asked.

Where would you even begin to answer that question?

"I'm told I will make a full recovery, Hokage-sama," Tenzou said.

Sandaime nodded. "That's good to hear, but that isn't what I asked you."

"I'm sorry… I… I don't know how to answer your question, Hokage-sama"

Sandaime nodded again as if that was the answer he had expected. "I see. I know that this might be difficult for you to understand, but both myself and my council consider your actions during this incident satisfactory, even commendable. You made the right choices in a difficult situation. Upon review with your remaining squad members, we've found that there was nothing you could have done to prevent the death of Yamanaka Masa."

_Until now I never even knew his name,_ Tenzou thought. He had to bite his lip to keep himself from protesting out loud. This was the Hokage. He couldn't argue with the Hokage's judgment, no matter how wrong it felt.

"You did the right thing. You had Masa use his telepathic jutsu to call for help early on, that is what saved the rest of your squad. Besides, that criminal was a bad match for you; I would never have sent your squad after him. No one could have foreseen that you would run into him like that, nowhere near his last known location. It was bad luck," Sandaime said. "Don't blame yourself."

"Thank you." Tenzou lowered his eyes. He didn't feel particularly relieved, but it was getting late – too late – and there was nothing left for him to do or say. "What is going to happen now?"

"You'll recover, and then I will speak to you again and you will tell me what you want to happen." Sandaime smiled a gentle smile, tinged with sadness. "Get well first; everything else comes later."

"The rest of my squad… you've spoken to them? How are they?" Did he really want to know? They had to hate him. Dai had lost his _twin brother_.

"Youshin has already been released from the hospital. Her injuries were only superficial. As for Dai, he's in his family's care."

Dai. The last time Tenzou had seen him, Dai had been catatonic with grief. He'd just sat there, staring into space.

"I see," he said reading all kinds of horrors into Sandaime's regretful tone. That meant half of his squad was already lost. "And Maito-san?" he asked as an afterthought, recalling the horrible sight at the battle site.

"He's in intensive care. If you'd like, I can have him transferred to your room when he's stable."

No, that wasn't what Tenzou had wanted, but it would be beyond awkward to say so now. "I… thank you, Hokage-sama." There were worse things than having to share a room with Gai-san. Probably.

"Get some rest." Sandaime turned to leave, and Tenzou realized that, if he wanted to keep his promise to himself, this was his chance. If he didn't set it in motion now, he never would.

"Hokage-sama… " he began tentatively, making Sandaime pause in the doorway. "Is Hatake Kakashi still away on duty?"

"Yes, but he is scheduled to return in two days." The Hokage smiled. "I will let him know where to find you."

* * *

"It was nice, Taichou," Youshin said, drawing her knees against her chest to rest her chin on top of them. She was perched on her chair so precariously that Tenzou was worried she might fall off at any moment. "Lots of flowers. Everything smelled like… flowers, I guess."

_Not burnt flesh,_ Tenzou thought. But then he didn't know if Kyou still—

He stopped himself, horrified at his own line of thought.

"I should have been there," he said, although he wasn't entirely convinced that was true for someone like him. Still, it seemed like the thing to say.

"I don't know. I mean, _I _felt out of place. It was mostly family."

He wondered if she was aware that she was making herself smaller with each word. It wasn't a pose that suited her, she was too tall, too muscular to curl into herself like that, but he could understand the urge.

"We didn't even know Yamanaka Masa," she mumbled. Strands of her dark hair were falling into her face, obscuring her eyes.

"How was Dai?" Tenzou asked after a moment of depressed silence.

"A little better, I think. He talked to people. Not me, though. I stayed in the back – but he looked better anyway. He's shaved his head."

Tenzou sat up a little straighter in bed. "He what?"

"He shaved his head. And it turns out his name is Masao. Can you believe that? That people have twins and call them Masa and Masao? Why not just call them _Masa one_ and _Masa two_ or _Masa the one we were expecting _and _Masa oops there was another one in there_?" She giggled and then abruptly buried her face in her knees.

"Youshin?" Tenzou wanted to reach over and put a hand on her shoulder, but suddenly he felt very intimidated by the fact that he didn't know _her _real name, just the code name that – as she'd proudly informed him back when he'd first met her– she had picked herself and that usually had people assuming she was a man.

Anyway, she was making no sound, so that meant she wasn't crying.

He hoped.

"Sorry, Taichou," she mumbled into the dark fabric of her pants, not raising her head. "I just… We were such a good team."

* * *

They brought Gai-san the next morning. He was wheeled in, lying in his bed, completely unconscious. Tenzou would have felt bad admitting it, but he was relieved. He didn't know Maito Gai all that well, but from what he'd heard and seen, Gai-san was a handful.

While unconscious, he was quiet and didn't get any visitors, which suited Tenzou, who liked the quiet and was a light sleeper, just fine.

Still, he felt bad about Gai and couldn't quite keep himself from looking over at him. After all, Gai was hurt because he'd helped Tenzou's squad, and it was hard to shake that image of him lying on the ground, twitching and screaming like he was slowly being torn apart.

* * *

"How is he?" Youshin was leaning over Gai-san, bringing her face so close to his, the tip of her nose almost touched his cheek.

"The nurses said he's just resting." Tenzou shot her a look and cleared his throat. "Should you be doing that?"

"Sorry… It's just… well… I just really admire him." It was slightly disturbing to hear such a girly declaration from a woman nearly a head taller than him, Tenzou found. Not to mention that she was blushing. She was less scary when she sliced men in half with her katana, he decided. Also, less insane.

Tenzou looked at Gai, whose mouth was hanging open like it had been ever since he'd been brought in. A small river of drool was steadily flowing out and being soaked up by his pillow. Not for the first time, Tenzou wondered if the nurses would have to wring it out by the end of the day.

He wrinkled his nose. "Why?"

"Why?! Because he saved us! Because his taijutsu is amazing!" She was wringing her hands and shuffling her feet. "Actually… I brought him a present."

She pulled something out of her pocket, something bright yellow and curved like a smile.

"It's a banana," she said. "Do you think he'll like it?"

Tenzou stared at the object in her hand. It was indeed a banana. A thin red thread with a little tag on it was tied around the short stem. He wondered what kind of message you would attach to a gift-banana.

"I honestly have no idea," he said.

* * *

He'd been asleep and then, at some point, he'd somehow stopped being asleep.

Now he was staring at the figure standing at the foot of Gai-san's bed. The room was suffused in a faint glow coming from outside the window. The break of dawn, Tenzou guessed.

There was this one person in Konoha who would make you wait all day and then show up at the break of dawn on the next just so he could say, _Sorry, I guess I'm a little early_.

Tenzou recognized him by the shape of his hair, by the slouched posture, by sum of all those small things that spelled Kakashi to his heart and made it beat a little faster.

Senpai was standing at the foot of Gai-san's bed when Tenzou opened his sleep-crusted eyes, and even sleep-muddled, Tenzou was able to conclude that he'd been standing there for a while. It was something in his posture that gave him away, although Tenzou couldn't put his finger on it, couldn't have given it any kind of name.

Tenzou lay very still, breathing evenly. He found himself wishing he hadn't woken up. He was intruding on something that had nothing to do with him, it was—

Kakashi stepped around to the side of Gai-san's bed and –

"Senpai," Tenzou said, knowing that his promise to himself was already broken.

He didn't know what he'd expected, for Kakashi to flinch and jerk away from Gai as if burnt? It didn't happen. Kakashi merely looked up and walked over to Tenzou unhurriedly.

"Did I wake you? I'm sorry," Kakashi said. "I just came back and wanted to check on you."

_On who exactly?_

"You heard?"

"Yeah. Sandaime-sama filled me in."

That was a conversation Tenzou wished he could have overheard, almost as much as he wished he'd never have to.

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

The room was silent except for Gai's breathing, which suddenly seemed obnoxiously loud to Tenzou, almost deafening.

"He said you did the right thing. Fast, too," Kakashi offered finally. "You're a good captain, Tenzou."

"One of my subordinates is dead, senpai." Tenzou was wringing his blanket in his hands, rolling the edge into a tight rope. He couldn't make himself stop.

"Two are alive." Kakashi might have shrugged the way he said it.

He could have raged at this point, Tenzou felt it, the hot anger, rising inside of him, flooding his lungs, drowning him unless he spewed it out, but he couldn't, _wouldn't_, that wasn't who he was. He wanted to scream at Kakashi and knew that he never would.

He felt himself growing corpse-cold instead.

"You used to promise every time—" he said under his breath, softly, recalling those moments before missions. He'd believed Kakashi, too, every time.

Senpai turned his face away, treating Tenzou to a view of obscuring cloth.

"You're not me, Tenzou-kun," he said more to the window than to anyone in the room. "And you're all grown up now, too, so stop trying to be, hm?"

Tenzou stiffened; the words were like a kick to his face. "You—" he gasped, wondering how it was even possible to hate someone this much and still love them at the same time. It was an unbearable state to be in.

"It's not much fun, being me," Kakashi said softly, without looking at him. "And I know you, Tenzou. I know you can be better."

_Every time he does that. Every time. He makes me hate him and then._ "Senpai—" Maybe he could find the right words, maybe—

"I brought you a fruit basket. It's for both of you, so you'd better eat your half before Gai wakes up," Kakashi announced, changing the mood completely and leaving Tenzou reeling to catch up.

"Someone else seems to have had the same idea, though," he continued, pointing to the single banana that lay next to the lavish fruit basket on the nightstand, highlighted by the sunlight filtering in through the window, as if it was some sort of holy object.

"Youshin brought it. It's a gift for Gai-san."

"Ah," Kakashi said, "the tomboy with a name like a warning label."

"She is… a _swordmaster_. " Tenzou felt himself flush, almost he'd said _my friend_, he'd wanted to, but it had felt like a statement he wasn't allowed to make without her explicit consent.

"Anyway, I'd better let you get some rest, so get well soon, Tenzou-kun, and don't forget to eat your fruit before Gai wakes up!"

Obediently, Tenzou glanced at the fruit basket again, and froze. There was something—

The single banana that lay next to it; it was just a banana. No red thread, no note.

Kakashi was at the door, hands in his pockets, his back to Tenzou.

"Senpai…?"

Kakashi turned around. "Hm?"

"…Is Gai-san going to be alright?"

"Sure. This isn't the first time he's done this."

Tenzou's heart was pounding wildly in his chest. He was hurt; he couldn't help it. Before, when he'd seen Kakashi standing at Gai-san's bedside, it hadn't been clear. They were friends. Just friends.

But that wasn't the vibe he'd gotten, was it?

"Is it always like this? Because… when I saw him yesterday… I was convinced he was dying. The noises he was making… Like an animal," he heard himself say, unable to stop even as he saw Kakashi's jaw clench.

"He wet himself," he finished, to his own horror.

Kakashi stared at him, and for a moment Tenzou didn't know if his senpai would walk over and slap his face. He had seen that flash of violence in Kakashi's dark eye, but it was gone within a second, replaced by anger and _disappointment._

It made Tenzou wish the earth would open up and swallow him.

* * *

That night, he dreamed that he was in a stable with a herd of pigs, eating and breathing dirt with them all day long, knowing that they and he would be slaughtered soon, that there was no way around it, but too caught up in the routine, the simplicity of his life, to do anything against it.

When he woke up, he thought he was still dreaming because he could still very clearly hear the animals munching and slurping nearby.

It took Tenzou a moment to figure out that the noises were not only real, but that they were in fact coming from the bed on the other side of the room, where Gai-san, very much awake, was sitting up and inhaling the contents of the fruit basket.

"Gai-san?"

All of Kakashi-senpai's warnings to eat his half quickly suddenly made sense as he watched Gai-san alternately take bites out of an apple and a pear, juice dripping down his chin.

"Hm?" Gai-san looked at him as if he hadn't even noticed that he wasn't completely alone in the room. "Good morning!" he bellowed around a mouthful of food. Then he blinked twice and cocked his head, reminding Tenzou of one of the stupider pigs in his dream.

"Have we met before?" he asked.

Tenzou did his best, but he couldn't quite suppress the groan.

* * *

"Aaah, I'm jealous!" Gai announced after the doctor had left. "You're getting out tomorrow! Back to steeling your body with grueling training! Back to fulfilling your duty with fiery passion!"

The word _fiery _was enough to make Tenzou cringe. He bit his lip, hoping Gai-san hadn't noticed. Gai-san was generally pretty obtuse, surely—

No, Tenzou could see those beady little eyes looking right through him. He focused his gaze on the edge of his blanket and prayed for the moment to pass.

Gai was staring at him, unashamedly like only a young child or an ANBU interrogator would. Tenzou could practically feel the weight of his gaze.

"Are you scared?" He should have expected it at this point, but Gai-san's completely tactless question still startled Tenzou.

_What kind of person would outright ask that? You'd have to be one hundred percent tone-deaf, socially._

"No," he said, hoping that his curt reply would discourage further interrogation.

"Then why are you making this sour face, Tenzou-kun?"

_You were there, how can you not know? Are you really this inhuman?_

It was something people in the village tended to say about Gai-san, usually jokingly. _Have you seen him, he can't be human! Those eyebrows! He must be some kind of monster!_ Tenzou had never paid any attention to that kind of talk – it wasn't like people had never said similar things about him and his abilities, but now…

"Gai-san… You saw what happened. I'm grateful for your support, but _please_—"

"Do you think you can bring the dead back to life with your bitterness?" Gai-san asked, his voice ridiculously curious and earnest, as if he expected a serious answer to this blatant _insult._

_"_What do you want to hear?" Tenzou shot back through clenched teeth. He didn't know why he was even bothering with someone like Gai, but now that he'd started talking, the words just kept coming. "I have failed; there is nothing I can do to change that," he said, and, in a way, it was a relief to finally say it aloud. "I have failed as a captain; I have failed my squad." A tired, wry smile crept onto his face. "Don't I get to be bitter now?" He stared down at his clenched fists, his white knuckles standing out against his skin like tiny flags of surrender in a sea of red.

"No!" Gai shouted and suddenly grabbed Tenzou by his shoulders. Tenzou jerked in his grip, startled beyond belief. How had Gai-san even gotten out of bed? How was he standing upright?

"Now you have to work harder than you ever worked before! You failed, Tenzou-kun! You have to get stronger! And you have to believe in yourself!" Gai-san declared.

Wide-eyed, Tenzou stared at the madman in the hospital gown standing next to his bed.

"Gai-san," he said tentatively, "um, how are you able to stand up straight?"

"It's because I believe in myself, Tenzou-kun! If a young, passionate person just believes hard enough, anything is possible!"

"Um, no, I don't think that's actually true… I think your muscles are still torn," he pointed out.

"Huh?"

For one strange moment, they both looked down at Gai-san's trembling hairy legs, then Gai's eyes widened, he squawked, _Help!_ and hit the floor with an impressive _thud_.

* * *

_So what do you do when you're not sure how to go on?_

_Easy! I train! Until I'm completely exhausted! _

_What do you do when all you want to do is scream?_

_Scream! Why hold back? Use your rage! Rain it down upon your enemies! Pour all your anger into your training! Give it your all! You failed, it might happen again, but the only real failure is if you give up! And live, don't insult the dead by wasting your life wallowing in regrets!_

* * *

_He is a completely ridiculous person,_ Tenzou thought.

He was alone in the forest, surrounded only by trees and the sounds of nature. He'd come to try out Gai-san's advice, not that he would ever admit that. He'd come to train. And he'd come to scream. However, he found that he couldn't really do the screaming part. He'd decide to do it; he'd take a deep breath—

And then nothing would come out. He simply wasn't the type of person to let go like that. He couldn't. All his pain seemed to burrow into him like termites, hiding in his dark places, eating into his insides.

Tenzou sank down onto his knees and pressed his palms into the soft mulch. He closed his eyes.

On his way to the forest he'd come past the barbecue place and the smell had almost made him throw up. Then, he'd ducked his head in shame when he'd passed the flower shop, and even now he could still see that moment playing out, unstoppable, irreversible, Kyou—

Chakra boiled inside him, he channeled his rage, his grief, regret and fear. He put it all in there. Flames, shiny metal surfaces, the smell of charred flesh, snake eyes, screams, silence. It pulsed out of him, and when he felt it dry up, he pushed harder, gritting his teeth, panting, giving it his all. He could feel it flowing from his palms.

Life.

* * *

Tenzou sat on the ground, head tilted back, shielding his eyes with one hand. He couldn't see the crown, just golden shafts of light drawing his gaze up until it was inevitably blocked by emerald leaves.

"It sure is big."

Tenzou flinched, he was sure his heart had missed a beat. The voice had come from behind him, but that wasn't it. It was _that _voice.

He whipped around, and even as he did it, even as he felt his blood run cold, he knew who it was, that it hadn't been _him._

It was slightly disturbing either way, just to look at him, and automatically see his brother's face.

_It must be incredibly painful for him, _Tenzou thought.

Maybe that was why Dai had shaved his head. He looked odd like that, naked, his green eyes seemingly too big for his face, his face still the exact same as his dead twin's.

Youshin stood behind him, hands on her hips, her eyes wandering up and down the trunk of Tenzou's tree. "Not like the buildings in those fancy books of yours, but I like it," she said.

Dai nodded. "Wonder what the world looks like from up there."

"Well, only one way to find out! Race you to the top? What do you say, Taichou?"

They were looking at him expectantly, waiting for his decision, like they had so many times before.

"Taichou?" Dai asked, his eyes searching Tenzou's.

The truth was that Tenzou didn't believe the sky would bring them closer to what they'd lost; the truth was that he already knew what the view up there would be like. Everything would be small, everything but the sun burning mercilessly in the sky.

And he knew that, no matter what, the three of them would be able to bear it.

"Let's go," he said.


End file.
